Resenting Breastfeeding during pregnancy

[kbrisson]

I am 16 weeks pregnant and have been resenting nursing my 15 month old son for a few weeks now. At times I can barely stand to nurse him. I have been feeling like an awful mother and have been very disappointed in myself for considering weaning when I had planned on child led weaning and tandem nursing. I have read up a bit on this issue and was glad to discover that this agitation while nursing during pregnancy is actually a fairly common experience. But this still doesn't solve the problem for me. I'm not sure I can continue nursing him while feeling this way. I would probably continue if I knew that I wouldn't feel like this sometime soon but I can't imagine feeling this way for the rest of my pregnancy. So, my questions are: Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what did you do?

[EmTheWife]

I don't have any answer for you, just compassion, for I am in the same boat! I posted a few days ago with a similar question, especially how to deal with ds's frustration at my decreasing supply, and I haven't had any answers either. Best to you on this journey!

[Peony]

Words can not describe just how much I hate nursing while pg. For me, the only way I can tolerate continuing to nurse, is to place some limits on when and how long we nurse. I've felt this feeling acutely during every pg (I've nursed through 3 pgs) and it goes away when the baby is born, but those 9 months are sheer torture. 

[kinkajoujou]

I have not been in the same situation as you ladies, but I remember reading a post in a similar forum a while back, and a lactation consultant there advised the poster to start exercising (both cardio and weights). This would affect her hormones in a positive way and the feeling would subside. The poster came back a while later to say that indeed exercising did help her a lot and she continued to breastfeed in a much better mood. I hope this helps

[prothyraia]

I nursed my oldest through my second pregnancy (he was 11-20 months old during that period).  It was hell.  I got through it by setting some serious limits.

I'm glad I stuck with it, because he went on to nurse until he was 3 1/2 and I think it was important to him, although I found nursing irritating for most of that time (so for me, it only got better after the baby was born and even then it still pretty much stunk).  At that point I weaned both of them because I was pregnant again and there was NO way I was going to nurse through another pregnancy.

I think you need to continually assess how it's impacting your relationship, what you can do to improve the situation, and whether or not you've reached a point where it's doing more harm than good.

[Devaskyla]

Right there too. Nursing my 2 1/2 year old at 23 weeks & he's driving me crazy.  It doesn't help that before I got pregnant, he was only nursing a couple times a day & since he's been trying to nurse all the time. And he won't take 'No' or 'Time's Up' for an answer, he'll just try to get me to nurse on the other side &/or say "please" endlessly &/or tries to lift my shirt. Driving me nuts. I get so frustrated & angry.

[Mom31]

I nursed my two year old all thru my pg and then till he was 4 and dd was 2. I would not do it again.

It made me resent my son. Do not harp on yourself too bad if you must wean... looking back I wish I had.

[D_McG]

I weaned.  I honestly don't think it's natural (for me) to nurse during pregnancy.  Not that I think there's anything wrong with it but my aversion was SO strong it was really clear to me that it was just 'wrong' for my body.

So I weaned and you'd better believe when it came time to TTC again I weaned BEFORE we started trying!!  Never again would I put us through nursing in pregnancy.  My whole body was just screaming WRONNNNNG!!  lol.  

[EzzysMom]

It bothered me. I set limits, length of nursing, number of nursing, and I'd just flat out say no when I wasn't feeling well. Also making sure every time it hurt I relatched her as she got lazy with there not being any milk. She's still nursing at almost 3.5, now limited to twice a day. I think it really helped once the baby was born, and it sure made my milk come in quickly afterwords. I thought it was worth it, although I might space my children further this next time because of it.

[skfmama]

I think we're on our way to weaning. DS is 18 months old and nurses 3 times a day. It hurts, even though he's gotten a lot better at being gentle when he latches (it's nice that we can talk about it). I'm starting to cut back (only offering one side per session instead of both...will eventually cut them out) and I'm not getting a lot of pushback from DS, so I'm continuing to cut back. I'm only 9 weeks pregnant and I had envisioned nursing longer into my pregnancy (second trimester at least), but I had no idea how uncomfortable it would be for me and how much I would dislike it. When I'm nursing, I hate it and wish I were just done...when I'm not nursing, I want to continue because I'm a fan of extended nursing and I know it's good for my toddler. But I think the nursing side is going to win out. :)

Go with the flow, listen to your body and try to be as gentle as possible with your little one. They will adapt but just need some extra loving during the transition. Best of luck!

[Hethir Songstad]

NAK! I had that SUPER bad! I call it the 'urge to either run away or throw the kid out the window'. DS2 was born 4 weeks ago and while tandeming is somewhat of a challenge (i still get that urge pretty often) I am so glad that we've kept at it. In June my toddler (he had just turned 2 and I was 29 weeks PG) got realllly sick. I was blindsided by how sick he was as the boy's almost never sick. it was a week long stomach flu with crazy high fevers that took over his immune system and left him anemic. He was basically sick for 6 weeks straight. I was soooooo happy to be breastfeeding and happy that I had immune boosting colostrum to give him. Im not saying that this will happen to you but I just wanted to make the point that you will never regret giving your toddler the gift of breastfeeding during this time.

As a side note: my extreme agitation was NON EXISTANT whenever my son got sick! In fact, one afternoon between illnesses while he was nursing, I noticed that I wasnt feeling 'that urge' and wondered if my son was getting sick. Sure enough, 2 hours later his temp spiked to almost 105*!! EEP!!!!! its amazing how our mama bodies work!!

[breastmama]

I felt EXACTLY the same way...except I wasn't 16 weeks so that's really good that you made it that far! I had to stop at around 8 weeks preggo when our baby was 15 months and I felt like a horrible mom because he clearly wasn't ready but I just couldn't take the pain. Baby was getting frustrated from the lack of supply and would bite sometimes, plus my breasts were killing me and then the poking of the belly and all when I was already feeling sore...my midwife told me I would stop making milk anyway at around 16 weeks or so, so I just decided to quit. I just felt horrible because he was cut the shortest (nursed oldest until 26 months, second 19 months I stopped because of being pregnant with this little guy and now I cut him off at 15 months).

I really would have loved to do the tandem thing and I'm not sure if it's possible, but I may let him try nursing again once this little one gets here.Instead of beating myself up about it, I eventually started patting myself on the back - all the moms I know (with the exception of my sister-in-law) quit at around 3 months, if they even gave it a shot at all.